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Month of the Holy Rosary

The
Lord hath blessed thee by His power, because by thee He hath
brought our enemies to nought.

Highlights

Prayer of the Month

Prayer of St. Louis de Montfort

O Jesus living in Mary, come and
live in Your servants, in the spirit of Your holiness, in the fullness
of Your might, in the perfection of Your ways, in the truth of Your
virtues, in the communion of Your mysteries. Subdue every hostile
power, the devil, the world and the flesh, in the strength of Your
Spirit, for the glory of Your Father, Amen.

Joyful
Mysteries

Annunciation
Visitation
Nativity of Christ
Presentation of the Christ Child in the Temple
Finding of the Christ Child in the Temple

Sorrowful
Mysteries

Agony in the Garden
Scourging at the Pillar
Crowning with Thorns
Carrying of the Cross
Crucifixion

The month of October (Overview - Calendar) is dedicated to the Holy Rosary. According to an account by fifteenth-century Dominican,
Alan de la Roch, Mary appeared to St. Dominic in 1206 after he had
been praying and doing severe penances because of his lack of success
in combating the Albigensian heresy. Mary praised him for his valiant
fight against the heretics and then gave him the Rosary as a mighty
weapon, explained its uses and efficacy, and told him to preach
it to others.

"Since
the prayers of the Rosary come from such excellent sources — from
Our Lord Himself, from inspired Scripture, and from the Church —
it is not surprising that the Rosary is so dear to our Blessed Mother
and so powerful with heaven.

"If we consider the power of the Rosary
as seen in its effects, we find a great abundance of proofs of its
wonderful value. Many are the favors granted to private individuals
through its devout recitation: there are few devoted users of the
Rosary who cannot testify to experiencing its power in their own
lives. If we turn to history, we see many great triumphs of the
Rosary. Early tradition attributes the defeat of the Albigensians
at the Battle of Muret in 1213 to the Rosary. But even those who
do not accept this tradition will admit that St. Pius V attributed
the great defeat of the Turkish fleet on the first Sunday of October,
1571, to the fact that at the same time the Rosary confraternities
at Rome and elsewhere were holding their processions. Accordingly,
he ordered a commemoration of the Rosary to be made on that day.
Two years later, Gregory XIII allowed the celebration of a feast
of the Rosary in churches having an altar dedicated to the Rosary.
In 1671, Clement X extended the feast to all Spain. A second great
victory over the Turks, who once, like the Russians, threatened
the ruin of Christian civilization, occurred on August 5, 1716,
when Prince Eugene defeated them at Peterwardein in Hungary. Thereupon
Clement XI extended the feast of the Rosary to the whole Church.

"Today, when dangers far greater than
those of the ancient Turks threaten not only Christianity but all
civilization, we are urged by our Blessed Mother to turn again to
the Rosary for help. If men in sufficient numbers do this, and at
the same time carry out the other conditions that she has laid down,
we have the greater reason for confidence that we will be delivered
from our dangers." -- Mary in our Life by Fr. William G. Most

The
Rosary and the Liturgical Year

The
Rosary had its origin in the liturgical mentality of former ages.
Even at the present time it is called "Mary's Psalter." There still
are Catholics who consider the 150 Hail Marys a substitute for the
150 psalms for those persons who neither have the time, the education,
nor the opportunity to pray the Hours of the Divine Office. Thus
"Mary's Psalter" is a shortened, simplified "breviary" — alongside
the common Hour-prayer of the Church. — The Church's Year of
Grace, Dr. Pius Parsch

The Rosary is Christocentric setting forth the entire
life of Jesus Christ, the passion, death, resurrection and glory.
Of course, the Rosary honors and contemplates Mary too, and
rightly so, for the same reason that the Liturgical Year does likewise:
"Because of the mission she received from God, her life is
most closely linked with the mysteries of Jesus Christ, and there
is no one who has followed in the footsteps of the Incarnate Word
more closely and with more merit than she"142 (Mediator
Dei). Meditation on this cycle of Joyful, Sorrowful, Glorious
and Luminous Mysteries makes the Rosary not only "a breviary
or summary of the Gospel and of Christian life,"(Ingravescentibus
malis) but also a compendium of the Liturgical Year. Therewith
the Rosary stands revealed as a dynamic teacher and nurturer of
Christian faith, morality, and spiritual perfection, fostering in
various ways faith, hope, charity, and the other virtues, and mediating
special graces, all to the end that we may become more and more
like unto Christ.  Mariology, Juniper B. Carol, O.F.M.

The Rosary
and the Popes

No form of extra-liturgical devotion to Mary is more widely practiced
among the faithful or found by them to be more satisfyingly complete
than the Rosary, which has come to be regarded as the very badge
of Catholic piety. No form of extra-liturgical devotion to Mary
has been recommended more warmly or frequently by the Popes. With
perhaps two exceptions, all the Sovereign Pontiffs from Sixtus IV
in 1478 down to John XXIII, especially Leo XIII (in 23 documents,
ten of them encyclicals entirely on the Rosary) and his successors,
have extolled this form of prayer, which has been the favorite,
moreover, of such saints as Teresa of Avila, Francis de Sales, Louis
de Montfort, Alphonsus Liguori, Don Bosco, Bernadette, and many
more.

The authentic Rosary is a happy combination
of vocal and mental prayer, each of which is essential to the devotion.
It is incorrect to say that meditation is "the very essence
of the Rosary devotion," for vocal recitation of the prayers
is also of the essence. Meditation is, of course, the nobler element,
the "soul," while vocal prayer is the "body"
of the devotion. The Rosary, Pope Leo XIII declared, "is composed
of two parts, distinct but inseparable — the meditation on the
mysteries and the recitation of the prayers. It is thus a kind of
prayer that requires not only some raising of the soul to God, but
also a particular and explicit attention" (Incunda semper).
Hence, as Pope Pius XI stated, they err "who consider this
devotion merely a boresome formula repeated with monotonous and
singsong intonation" (Ingravescentibus malis). Moreover,
as Pius XI put it, "both piety and love, although always breathing
forth the same words, do not, however, repeat the same thing, but
they fervently express something ever new which the loving heart
always sends forth." And finally, in the words of Pius XII,
"the recitation of identical formulas, repeated so many times,
rather than rendering the prayer sterile and boring, has on the
contrary the admirable quality of infusing confidence in him who
prays, and brings to bear a gentle compulsion on the motherly heart
of Mary (Ingravescentibus malis).  Mariology,
Juniper B. Carol, O.F.M.

Pope Benedict XVI in an address at the Basilica of St. Mary Major where he prayed the rosary with the faithful said:

Today, together we confirm that the Holy Rosary is not a pious practice banished to the past, like prayers of other times thought of with nostalgia. Instead, the Rosary is experiencing a new Springtime. Without a doubt, this is one of the most eloquent signs of love that the young generation nourish for Jesus and his Mother, Mary. In the current world, so dispersive, this prayer helps to put Christ at the centre, as the Virgin did, who meditated within all that was said about her Son, and also what he did and said. When reciting the Rosary, the important and meaningful moments of salvation history are relived. The various steps of Christ's mission are traced. With Mary the heart is oriented toward the mystery of Jesus. Christ is put at the centre of our life, of our time, of our city, through the contemplation and meditation of his holy mysteries of joy, light, sorrow and glory. May Mary help us to welcome within ourselves the grace emanating from these mysteries, so that through us we can "water" society, beginning with our daily relationships, and purifying them from so many negative forces, thus opening them to the newness of God. The Rosary, when it is prayed in an authentic way, not mechanical and superficial but profoundly, it brings, in fact, peace and reconciliation. It contains within itself the healing power of the Most Holy Name of Jesus, invoked with faith and love at the centre of each "Hail Mary".

The Mysteries
of the Rosary

Until
about the 15th century hundreds of mysteries were part of the Rosary
devotion then the 15 mysteries that we know today were definitively
fixed as "the Mysteries of the Rosary." Pope John Paul
II, in his encyclical, Rosarium Virginis Mariae, in 2002
added the five Luminous Mysteries.

Through the meditations of the complete Rosary one
recalls and has impressed on his mind, the Popes tell us, "the
chief mysteries of the Christian religion," "the mysteries
of our Redemption," "the great mysteries of Jesus and
His Mother united in joys, sorrows, and triumphs." The twenty
mysteries are divided into four equal groups, known as "The
Joyful," "The Sorrowful," "The Glorious,"
and "The Luminous Mysteries."

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